What’s In A Name
Iron Valley Supply Co.’s Rebranding
Effort Goes Beyond Name Change
Based in the Iron Valley region of Alabama for nearly 100 years, Iron Valley Supply Co. (formerly, Bangers LP) launched in July. Iron Valley Supply’s rebrand effort will go far beyond a new name: the distributor is in the midst of streamlining its operations to serve an expanded network of retailers and has debuted a content channel to further educate customers.
Brent Wouters, Iron Valley Supply CEO, sat down with Shooting Industry to share how strategic investments are enhancing its capabilities.
“We’re trying to be the easiest to do business with, which is online these days, and be the most knowledgeable in terms of the information we provide to our dealers through our sales team, as well as other efforts we have in the works,” he said.
Discussing the name change, Wouters shared it received unanimous support from employees to industry partners — even folks who had never heard of the company’s previous name.
“We needed to be able to set up a brand name that even our employees were proud of that allowed us to tell our story, market our business and to expand the business — not only geographically, but expanding the products we offer,” he said. “We also needed something that was going to work in the modern world.”
Impact Of New Studio
Not long after its name change, Iron Valley Supply launched Iron Valley TV, an adventure culture content channel covering new products, events, dealer education and more. Produced in an in-house studio in Birmingham, Ala., Iron Valley TV represents another way for the company to connect with customers and deliver sales tips.
“Giving our customers the tools they need to be successful is what it’s all about,” Wouters stated. “The studio, for us, is a way to tell the story of the manufacturer with a new product (or existing products) to get richer, deeper information into the hands of the dealer — they can literally use this at the counter to help them sell.”
Iron Valley Supply has used its video content presence to share updates with customers, highlight its partnership with the Society of the Honor Guard to celebrate the 100-year anniversary of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and more. Wouters sees this medium as vital to Iron Valley’s success moving forward.
“This ultimately gives the dealer another reason to really want to connect with us. It’s an integral part of all the things we want to do to help make the dealer successful,” he added.
While the current focus is to build a content library for its retail customers, Wouters shared live events is something Iron Valley Supply Co. has planned, too.
“Over time, dealers are going to see the content engine of the studios, the ability to get a lot more information on a product and what things go with it so they can upsell/cross-promote whatever they want to use with it,” he said.
Operating out of a new in-house studio, Iron Valley TV gives dealers another trusted resource to
learn more about a company's products. Pictured here: Shane Wheaton, Iron Valley Supply VP
and host of Iron Valley TV, and James Holley, Smith & Wesson national account manager, share
the story behind S&W's limited production run of the M&P9 M2.0 Spec Series Pistol Kit.
Streamlining Operations
With a background in airplane and automative manufacturing, Wouters has sought to streamline Iron Valley Supply’s operations — which has been especially beneficial during this period of continued elevated demand in the consumer market.
“We’ve streamlined operational disciplines, built repeatable processes and a ‘lean’ mentality in terms of keeping things efficient. With a little automation, we’ve been able to change literally thousands of things to improve the flow of product in our warehouse — shipping four times the volume we were 12 months ago,” he said.
Wouters shared Iron Valley Supply and its customers will continue to benefit from new enterprise software as its being implemented.
“It’s a massive effort, and there will be some additional changes over the next 12–18 months through enterprise software, which will further accelerate our capabilities to support an expanded salesforce and dealer network,” he noted.
Dealer Focus
At the forefront, these changes at Iron Valley Supply are centered on enhancing its relationship with dealers.
“We’re still really focused on the independent dealer and making them successful,” Wouters said. “We’re going to be aggressive in terms of our geographical expansion and serve more dealers with these tools. We’re sticking to our knitting; we have industry expertise here and we’re going to try and build on that and serve our customers.”
For more information, visit ironvalleysupply.com/dealer-registration.
